Last evening I had this divine meal at Malai which I raved on about earlier this morning. At the end of the dinner we were served a special black rice pudding with coconut and taro that was lush, and along side we were offered a cup of Verbena Pu’erh tea or Weasel Coffee. Weasel coffee?

What Yasmin and Braden Wages were really offering was a cup of Joe grown in Indonesia called Kopi Luwak. This peculiar sounding coffee gets more exotic by the minute as you look further into where the bean is found. Weasel coffee is a loose English translation of its Vietnamese name cà phê Chồn, and the weasel is actually the Asian palm civet.

The civet dines primarily on beef but also enjoys a good coffee bean. The bean is processed through the animals digestive tract, washed, sun dried, light roasted and brewed. The coffee is sold for upwards to $200 a pound.

The coffee is decidedly lush and the whole ‘process’ makes the bean much less bitter. And there is the whole poo thing.